Singapore's Jurong shipyard won the bidding, but Petrobras thought the offer was too high, Estrella said.

"There is a significant price increase in E&P worldwide and this will end up killing the goose that laid the golden egg. If the prices go up further, projects will not be feasible. Petrobras will not build oil platforms at any price," Estrella said.

Petrobras has postponed first oil from the Roncador field to late 2012 or early 2013 from 2010 due to delays in contracting P-55 construction.

"To compensate for the delay in P-55, we are increasing our E&P activity in mature fields and accelerating production from the P-56 oil platform in the Marlim Sul field [100,000b/d] to 2011 from 2013," he said.

P-55 will be a semi-submersible platform, producing as much as 180,000b/d oil and 4.5Mm3/d natural gas.

Petrobras in September will start producing 30,000b/d at the Piranema field. In October, the following will start operations: the Cidade de Vitória FPSO in the Golfinho field (100,000b/d), the P-52 platform in the Roncador field and the P-54 platform, also in Roncador.